Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus configured to form an image on a sheet.
Description of the Related Art
In the field of production print that uses a laser printer, a digital multifunction peripheral, or a similar image forming apparatus, image forming apparatus to which a finisher equipped with stapling, hole punching, folding, book binding, and other multiple finishing functions can be connected are increasing in number in recent years. Finishers of this type have a plurality of discharge destinations for sheets in order to output a large amount of image data to a recording medium in an image forming apparatus. Some finishers output a sheet to a dedicated discharge destination that is not a normal discharge destination, depending on which finishing function is used.
In the case of outputting a plurality of copies for each of a plurality of printed products, an operator may have difficulties in finding where one printed product ends and another printed product starts when taking sheets from a discharge destination. In Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2002-374388, there is disclosed a technology capable of separating a printed product from another printed product with a colored sheet or a sheet for separating printed products, which has information on a printed product written thereon, in order to make it easier to see where one printed product ends and another printed product starts.
The related art, however, has a problem in that, depending on which finishing function is specified for a printed product, a sheet for separating printed products and the printed product are output to different discharge destinations due to a failure to match the discharge destination of the former and the discharge destination of the latter.
For instance, when a saddle stitching bookbinding process in which the finisher binds sheets folded in half is specified for a printed product, a sheet for separating printed products is output by following discharge destination information of initial settings that are set to the image forming apparatus. The printed product, on the other hand, is output to a discharge destination that is assigned to an output of the saddle stick bookbinding process. With the sheet for separating printed products and the printed product being output to different discharge destinations, the sheet for separating printed products does not fulfill its role of separating printed products from each other.